The COVID-19 crisis required that county human service agencies work in new ways, respond quickly, and plan in an uncertain environment. While agencies are facing similar issues, the urgent demands of responding to the crisis made it difficult to access the experience and knowledge being developed in other jurisdictions. BASSC worked to bridge this gap by focusing on two avenues for information exchange: facilitating virtual conversations and collating and disseminating information from a variety of external sources.
We hosted and facilitated regional, virtual discussions that enabled agency staff to share strategies for carrying out key functions related to delivering services, supporting staff, and coordinating with county and nonprofit partners. In addition to this local, cross-county information exchange, the BASSC team synthesized, for the discussion, relevant research, as well as other sources of expertise. The first CIE session in July 2020 focused on Remote Work, with follow-up sessions on Remote Work in August 2020 to address Ergonomics and Equipment, and Performance Management.